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The War Z: shady, misleading and false advertising.

P

Parallacs

Member
wwm0nkey said:
It got taken down! lol
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Picture of Ewok Village Dancing

I think the most credit should go to TotalBiscuit for the video and Gamespy for that interview. A youtube user who I honestly had never heard about and a website/game client that I haven't used in a decade.

They really deserve some respect.
 
R

Relaxed Muscle

Member
aCYxG.jpg
 
P

Parallacs

Member
DTKT said:
They are not investigating the game, or it's advertising method. Just the forums. In fact, I guarantee you that the game will never be removed from the store.

I don't call that a victory.
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Haha, no ill will meant. I think we are all a little suprised it has been taken down already.

The real question is for how long.
 
Spat_triate

Spat_triate

Member
I usually don't harbor ill feelings against organizations because I empathize with the regular hard-working employees, but seriously, Hammerpoint Interactive can go fuck themselves. The 'company' seems to be nothing but a shady, two bit, shitty, exploitative excuse for a game developer.
 
B

Burekma

Member
Deadly Cyclone said:
Thing with that is, you didn't buy the game then find that out.
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Yes. Yes I did. Of course, I didn't care for it, since I didn't even expect there to be PvP. And I bought it digitally, so no box for me.

In general, if it states something is there, on the box, and the feature is missing, it's false advertising. Doesn't matter if the company said something at some point prior to you buying it. Consumers are not expected to fact check every bullet point on the box.
 
R

Ruuppa

Member
Well well well. This might just make me regain my respect for Valve. Still, they let the game come on Steam in the first place..
 
J

JambiBum

Member
gutabo said:
So if a guy(with low health and no ammo) you were fighting against logs out, buys food on the marketplace to get his health back (and since he's already there, some ammo too), comes back to the server and kills you there's not an issue there for you?
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Way late, but there's a disconnect timer to stop things like that from happening. It takes 10+ seconds to disconnect so if someone stops moving completely you can tell they are disconnecting. If someone does manage to get away that way then I would just leave the area. Usually after a gunfight you want to leave the area anyway because gunshots draw zombies and other players. If I die it is usually my own fault for not checking my surroundings or a zombie picks me off after a fight, especially now that they've added more.

You can't heal in the menus, so if someone were to log out and go to the market to buy items they would have to go to a completely different server to hopefully heal safely and then back to the server that I was in. By the time that happened I would be long gone. I've never had the particular issue you bring up happen to me but if it did (and I knew for certain that was what happened) then I would be annoyed. Then again I'm annoyed any time I die.
 
P

Parallacs

Member
I was questioning their motivation to create the California map but considering that they were making fistfulls of money yesterday, I figured they would push something out.

Can people honestly think they are going to make a good 400km^2 map now? Now that their game has been removed from Steam? Plus that backlash must have been draining for the devs. I really wouldn't have the motivation to work on it, let alone the hundreds of problems the game has.
 
legacyzero

legacyzero

Banned
It got taken down?

Sweet Gaben justice!

Ruuppa said:
Well well well. This might just make me regain my respect for Valve. Still, they let the game come on Steam in the first place..
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I don't think this is a fair statement. If they duped a lot of customers, what makes you think that Valve knew?
 
M

Mahonay

Banned
Parallacs said:
I was questioning their motivation to create the California map but considering that they were making fistfulls of money yesterday, I figured they would push something out.

Can people honestly think they are going to make a good 400km^2 map now? Now that their game has been removed from Steam? Plus that backlash must have been draining for the devs. I really wouldn't have the motivation to work on it, let alone the hundreds of problems the game has.
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They've made it quite clear they don't care about what anyone thinks. Or about doing the right thing. Their actions show as much.

If anything this encouraged them. Despite their absolutely ridiculous bullshit, their game sill sold gangbusters compared to what they had probably projected. I'd be shocked if they didn't come back to Steam with a new build.
 
eot

eot

Banned
Mahonay said:
They've made it quite clear they don't care about what anyone thinks. Or about doing the right thing. Their actions show as much.

If anything this encouraged them. Despite their absolutely ridiculous bullshit, their game sill sold gangbusters compared to what they had probably projected. I'd be shocked if they didn't come back to Steam with a new build.
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Either they pay the refunds and lose a lot of that money, or they refuse in which case I doubt they'll get on Steam again.

edit: thinking about it they probably haven't gotten the money from Valve so I guess they just won't get whatever's refunded.
 
M

Mahonay

Banned
eot said:
Either they pay the refunds and lose a lot of that money, or they refuse in which case I doubt they'll get on Steam again.

edit: thinking about it they probably haven't gotten the money from Valve so I guess they just won't get whatever's refunded.
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Hmmm...

Well, regardless, I think they still sold quite a bit of copies all on their own before Steam.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Zefah said:
I think Valve cares very much about their reputation and the goodwill they have built up over the years. It's a part of why they've been so successful over the years.

So, yeah, I think Valve might care about their customers a bit more than this flash-in-the-pan dinky little game around which bad word of mouth is spreading rapidly.
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Glad to see my faith in Valve was justified.

And holy shit at that splash screen of real people just being photoshopped in...

This is approaching Limbo of the Lost levels of absurdity.
 
N

Nohar

Member
A friend insisted that I should buy this game and play with him. I politely refused, since I don't like zombies games, and we had a quick argument on which game, better Monster Hunter and The War Z, was the most interesting one (yeah, it's as pointless and stupid as it sounds, since we weren't even talking about the same video game genre - oh well).

Needless to say, I can't wait to reveal to him everything I just read in this thread.

To be honest, I'm a little shocked to read what they did (disinformation and banning, notably). And I really wasn't expecting Steam to withdraw the game from their store (well, the "Buy" button, that is).

This is going to be interesting...
 
mneuro

mneuro

Member
I'm curious. Can Valve force them to refund the money and sue them if they don't? Technically they are hurting Valve's brand by doing this.
 
G

gutabo

Member
KKRT00 said:
So where is that defense force You were talking about? It does exist or not?
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Why? You want in? PM dubq, he'll be all over it.

KKRT00 said:
And yes i think that Steam page description is a scam, it should be labeled not even as Beta, but as an early Beta or even late alpha, because it lacks fundamental features like HC mode, stash or private servers. I dont mind that devs want to sell beta, more should do it, but it should be labeled that way.
But i also dont think they should get accused about features that are actually good, like casual mode = normal, or meaningless microtransactions like respawns, or getting shit on because they allow for full drop and that includes microtransaction items.
I think that is actually very good implementation, because it allows to care for Your character more and trade looted special stuff with players in hubs, in future at least ;p
Without full drop it would be pay to win, and with current implementation it is not, and i really wish that Rocket would implement something similar, because its just additional revenue for devs that does not debalance gameplay. I also think that Rocket should implement Normal mode like WarZ, it would not only bring new, more 'casual' players to the game, but also help HC servers to have more mature community. Do You guys remember how better DayZ was when it was still a niche title?
I'm also happy that WarZ exists, because even if it does not affect DayZ now, it will in future in some degree and competition is always good for consumers.
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I didn't say the page description was a scam, I said the whole game. I asked a question you didn't answer, and maybe it's because the only answer is money. And that means that the game is a cash in(best possible scenario) and/or a scam(worst possible but most likely scenario). You can buy food(health) and ammo, how is that not paying to win? Future features talk is useless right now. How do you think early adopters feel now that their "one time only discounts" are obsolete now with the game STILL in "late alpha"? The devs have been lying all the time about lots of things just to be able to sell more of their unfinished game. False advertising is false advertising, inside and outside of steam. If you don't want to see that, I can't make you.
 
K

KKRT00

Member
gutabo said:
I didn't say the page description was a scam, I said the whole game. I asked a question you didn't answer, and maybe it's because the only answer is money. And that means that the game is a cash in(best possible scenario) and/or a scam(worst possible but most likely scenario). You can buy food(health) and ammo, how is that not paying to win? Future features talk is useless right now. How do you think early adopters feel now that their "one time only discounts" are obsolete now with the game STILL in "late alpha"? The devs have been lying all the time about lots of things just to be able to sell more of their unfinished game. False advertising is false advertising, inside and outside of steam. If you don't want to see that, I can't make you.
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You could buy alpha/beta with limited features and You got alpha/beta with limited features, i didnt see scam there, but i see scam on Steam page when they advertise finalized game without features. As I said, I dont see anything wrong with paying for alpha/beta access or funding ongoing development like for example Minecraft.

About microtransactions i couldnt be more precise in my post how i feel about them. I've actually answered about every point of microtransaction there.
I define pay to win as a something that debalance gameplay, if they sell additional bag slot that is not affected by death, thats pay to win, if they sell armor boosters etc, its pay to win for me and if they sell option to revive with everything You got, thats also pay to win, but as long as You can kill a guy that puts 1000$ into character as fast as a lvl 1 character and he drops everything he has, its not pay to win for me.

Ps. Thats also the reason why games like DayZ should never be F2P, because accounts have no permanent progression, so bans wont affect anything and people will just create new accounts, and then screw others again.

Oh You ask why release shop now, not after game is finalized, yep for money, exactly for the same reason as in final game. Microtransaction shops are money making features, nothing more, nothing less.
 
R

Reynx

Member
If it hasn't been posted before: Statement from Valve

Valve said:
Valve: From time to time a mistake can be made and one was made by prematurely issuing a copy of War Z for sale via Steam. We apologize for this and have temporary removed the sale offering of the title until we have time to work with the developer and have confidence in a new build. Those who purchased the game and wish to continue playing it via Steam may do so. Those who purchased the title via Steam and are unhappy with what they received may seek a refund by creating a ticket at our support site here: https://support.steampowered.com/newticket.php

Again, we apologize any inconvenience.
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S

Stuart444

Member
Jack_AG said:
Those animations of the zombies crowding around the body were amazingly bad. Also - no indicator as to what to do when you die? You just sit there? For an hour? HOLY FUCK!
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4 hours now but yeah. No indicator and that (and the walking down hill = bye bye to a bit of your health) is what really made me say "What the...?" when watching the TB video.
 
P

Parallacs

Member
Stuart444 said:
4 hours now but yeah. No indicator and that (and the walking down hill = bye bye to a bit of your health) is what really made me say "What the...?" when watching the TB video.
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The hill thing was funny but the absolute shocker was when he tried to swim in the river and it walled him off.

I can just imagine trying to run from 20 zombies at night and suddenly start dancing at the edge of a shallow lake.
 
S

spindoctor

Member
Was reading that reddit thread and came across a guy who posted that he bought the game the first day it was available and didn't like it so he asked for a refund. And this was the reply he got

4PirE.png
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Why are people still defending this company?

Any way, Steam has started sending out refunds for anyone who asks. Good thing the devs can't fuck over Steam customers.
 
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